Lately, I started buying GBA carts as they're getting cheap, so I'm playing them over my EZ-Flash IV, for the most part. Now, I am aware Sword Of Mana has some graphical glitches in it but the past couple of days I've seem some odd flashing on the top screen, not the entire screen but some graphical glitches flashing moreso than usual. I found I as able to repeat this by jumping to and from ledges. This did not happen with every jump but in some cases I'd get garbled lines and even the black border around the game would flash white with the glitched parts. Again, this was not the entire screen, only a section.

I shut down and switched GBA to the bottom screen to see if the game was bugged(it had not done this before though), and all I got was the expected glitches(the mana statue in Topple, the first town, jitters when you walk around). I even went to the same spots and jumped numerous times and was unable to get the same glitch. I switched back to the top screen and found the glitches weren't repeating this time. I also tested the game on my GB Player and found nothing.

So what is it? Is the top screen going bad? Dirt on the cartridge pins that caused an intermittent break? I would lean towards dirty pins as the glitches stopped but it doesn't hurt to be sure. The game I'd played prior was my EZ-Flash, I played through Max Payne and noticed nothing odd and saw nothing in the DS menu screens.